What makes life meaningful enough to go on living? - Reading When Breath Becomes Air

This is a year that I am far behind my goal of reading, but fortunately, among the few books I've read this year, there are some great ones.

I always struggle to star-rate a book. How do you condense the holistic experience into one to five starts? I can give a book a 5-star for the first half, and a two-star for the second. I can give the beautiful writing a five, but the impact on my life a one. I can give the profound thought, the interesting perspective a five, but what if the writing style is dry and unbearable? It is just so compounded.

But giving a start review is motivating, I love to see my Goodreads "read" shelf growing with the books I reviewed It empowers the readers.

After all, I decided that I have three criteria that I expect the author to hit. I will award my stars based on these three:

• Is the book beautifully written, in terms of flow, style, and voice?
• Is the thought, perspective, and information interesting?
• Is there an impact on me after having read this book?

When Breath Becomes Air hits all these three. This is how profound this book is.

Paul Kalanithi is a genius, a genius with the blessing of talents in both writing and medical fields. Growing up, I admire people who excel not only in one field, but their excellence illuminates multiple arenas. The identity defined by one field often brought out extremely interesting thoughts to another. In this case, his identity as a neurosurgeon sparked on his identity as an author, offering insight on his career choice:

"I was compelled by neurosurgery, with its unforgiving call to perfection: like the ancient greek concept arete, I thought, virtue required moral, emotional, mental and physical excellence. Neurosurgery seemed to present the most challenging and direct confrontation with meaning, identity and death...

Before operating on a patient's brain, I realized, I must first understand his mind; his identity; his values, what makes his life worth living, and what devastation makes it reasonable to let that life end."

This is so powerful. Countless times people felt the calling of the medical profession due to a family members illness or tragic death or the financial security. But beyond that, the medical field connects life and death in a spiritual way--it connects the meaning and the meaningless. Only the strongest and the curious minds would feel the pleasure of discovering and understanding the line between meaning and the meaningless. In a field where patient logistic, family irrational emotion, and crazy schedule dominated the waking hours, preserving the sense of pleasure and responsibilities is the true testament of Paul's excellence.

As a neurosurgeon, he had a promising future, but he also had a love for writing. Writing was supposed to be the later commitment in his life and career, but the diagnosis of stage IV cancer forced him to bring this goal forward. The uncertainties of terminal disease forced him to change his priorities again and again in the pursuit of a meaningful life.

"Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. But now I knew it acutely...

The tricky part of illness is that, as you go through it, your values are constantly changing. You try to figure out what matters to you, and then you keep figuring it out. It felt like someone had taken away my credit card and I was having to learn how to budget. You may decide you want to spend your time working as a neurosurgeon, but two months later, you may feel differently. Two months after that, you may want to learn to play the saxophone or devote yourself to the church. Death may be a one-time event, but living with terminal illness is a process"

Life at my age offers limitless choices, and the curiosity and interest shout for more pursuits, thinking the time is abundant. But what if it is not?  What if it is so short, that I have to budget for my current priorities before I even figured out what my true passions are? Learning how to make choices requires years and age might be a good indicator of how experienced a person is on this skill. How can someone accelerate it? Too many times I consider myself confused. I have a passion for the food industry, but I sometimes got distracted by the financial reward of having a different career path. I love writing, but the language barrier stalled my writing habit. I enjoy learning something new from friends with different cultural backgrounds, but the gravity of being a Chinese keeps drawing me back to the familiar. I love working with people with specific skills, but I don't want to be perceived as a narrowly specialized person. I have trouble making a choice and a meaningful life is a blur to me. That's the impact of When Breath Becomes Air had on me. I know acutely that there is a boundary of life and having priorities is the pathway of acknowledging the meaning of life by one's own definition. I start to wonder what is a meaningful life for me.

I began to sketch out what matters to me the most and what brought true joy of life. After sitting in front of my dining table for a couple hours, here is my draft:

• Create: Create products and experience, write, sketch, cook, and share. Be original. independent, and cross the line between fields
• Bring culture from its origin to a new destination: Relentlessly discovering new information, lifestyle, history and traditions. Transfer them, make sure they carry unique value and spark others' curiosity. 
• Gather people: Appreciate people of different skills and talents. Immerse myself with interesting people. Bring people together.

Creating a blog is a small step of releasing my creative energy. Sharing my cultural perspective and learning of different culture can also be achieved here. As for gathering people, I think I had a successful game night at my place with my friends from Ecuador and India last night. :)